doorways and halls led out from the central chamber. The house was dark and silent.
Xaphira moved in beside Emriana, breathing slowly. 'Still no traps,' she said, 'and no magical emanations anywhere.'
Emriana nodded. 'If you were expecting uninvited guests,' she said, 'would you possibly hold back your defenses until they were deep inside, perhaps lulled into a false sense of security?'
'Perhaps,' Xaphira answered.
'And where would you wait for those uninvited guests to arrive?'
Xaphira didn't say anything for a long moment, then she replied, 'The basement.'
'That's what I was thinking, too,' Emriana said. 'Let's see if we can find our way down.'
'If we get separated for some reason,' Xaphira said, pulling a glowing coin from a pouch at her waist and handing it to Emriana, 'use your necklace to call to me.' She removed a second lit coin, which she kept. 'And if you think you hear something, slip that into a pocket and hide.'
'I will,' Emriana said. And with that, they started forward. The girl crept along, rolling the balls of her feet to be as silent as possible as she roamed toward the nearest doorway. Inside, she saw an open chamber with several dark figures standing still, waiting for her.
She nearly yelped out loud before she realized they were suits of armor, assembled on stands. It was something of a trophy room with numerous treasures displayed on shelves, in cases, and hanging from the walls. There weren't any other visible exits from the room, and she didn't see the point in checking for concealed passages until they had exhausted all the other possibilities.
The girl turned back to try a different doorway and saw motion from deeper in the house. She swallowed hard and slipped the coin into her pocket, dousing the illumination and peering into the darkness. It had not been Xaphira, for Emriana could easily see her across the way by the glow of her coin, moving about in a dining room. Whatever had moved, it had been hidden in the near-darkness on the edge of Emriana's vision.
I need the eyes of a dwarf, the girl thought, frustrated. They can creep around without any light at all and see just fine.
As Emriana stared at the blackness ahead of her, trying to spot whatever had caught her attention without being exposed herself, she heard the rustle of cloth and a single footstep brushing softly across a stone floor.
'Xaphira!' Emriana cried out, yanking the coin free of her pocket and throwing it in the direction of the sounds. 'Hurry!'
The coin bounced and rolled into the hallway, lighting the passage enough as it traveled that Emriana could clearly see Bartimus standing in a doorway several paces away. Even her suspicion that someone was present didn't help Emriana contain her fear, and she shrieked slightly when the wizard's face came into view.
Bartimus seemed just as startled as the girl, for he jumped when the coin came at him, his eyes wide with apprehension. He took one look at Emriana, then turned and ran, his robes swishing behind him.
'Come back here,' Emriana yelled just as Aunt Xaphira came running out of the dining room. Emriana took off after the wizard, determined not to let him get away.
'Em, wait!' Aunt Xaphira called, hustling to keep up with the girl. 'Don't get foolish!'
Emriana stopped to pick up her coin before she continued, allowing her aunt to catch up to her. 'It's the wizard,' she said, charging through the doorway where Bartimus had disappeared. 'He's escaping!'
Bartimus was no sneak and Emriana could easily hear him huffing and puffing as he tried to evade her and her aunt. He ducked around a corner and Emriana spotted him a moment later at the far end of a hall. He had stopped and was gesturing toward her. She froze on the spot, knowing he was about to launch some arcane force at her, and she couldn't make her legs move to get out of the way. Xaphira grabbed at the girl and jerked her sideways into a sitting room, just as a burst of flame came roaring down the hall. The blast of heat that cascaded over Emriana's face from the searing jets of flame was enough to help her regain her caution.
'All right,' Xaphira said once the fiery blast faded away, 'I've got something for him, now,' and she stepped back into the hallway, holding her holy coin in front of her. 'Come here, you little worm,' she said, and went trotting down the hall, her light receding with her.
Emriana started out the door to follow her, but a sound caught her attention from the other direction. She paused, keeping her coin in her pocket for a moment, and just listened. Someone was in the next room over!
Quietly feeling her way with her hand on the wall, Emriana moved in the opposite direction her aunt had gone. Xaphira had vanished quickly, for when Emriana glanced back once, wondering if she should let her know what she had heard, the woman and her light were both already gone. For a moment, Emriana fingered her opal pendant.
No, she decided. Can't give away my presence even with a whisper.
Emriana bolstered her courage with a single deep breath and proceeded. The noises from the next room continued, and it sounded to Emriana as though someone were shifting crates around. She used the wall to guide herself, and when she found the frame of the door, she stopped, listening again.
Someone was definitely on the other side of the door. She felt for the handle and pulled the slightest bit, hoping to get a peek inside before anyone noticed she was there. It was dark in the room, but the sounds continued. Emriana listened for a moment longer, keeping the door open only a crack. It still sounded as if someone were stacking crates.
How odd, she thought, preparing to swing the door wide and toss the coin inside for a better view. Then she grew suspicious. Can wizards make magic that sounds like someone moving around? she wondered. Probably, she decided. Wants me to just walk in.
Instead, she took a length of rope that she carried-in case we need to do any serious climbing or tie someone up, she had told Xaphira-and very carefully tied one end of it to the pull handle of the door. She uncoiled the rope as she walked backward, away from the portal, perhaps ten paces. Then she yanked the door open.
An audible click sounded in the hall and a whoosh of air was released from inside the room. A blink of an eye later, something loud popped on the far side of the hall.
Despite her preparations, Emriana jumped at the sound. Then she stood stark still, waiting to see if anything else happened. When it did not, she carefully moved back to the wide-open door and listened. The sound of crates being stacked was still in evidence, and in fact, hadn't changed at all.
Knowing that such noises couldn't be natural, Emriana pulled her coin out of her pocket, blinking in its brightness. The room was no more than a storage closet, but mounted on a stand in the center, aimed right for the door, was a small ballista. A bit of twine ran from the trigger mechanism to the door. Turning, Emriana found the remains of the large bolt that had been fired. It was as long as her leg and as thick as her thumb.
It would have skewered me, she thought unhappily.
The sounds of crate-stacking continued, but Emriana realized they were merely a trick of magic, some sort of prestidigitation Bartimus likely conjured to draw her or her aunt into opening the door.
Aunt Xaphira!
Emriana turned around, ready to grab her pendant and call to her aunt when a face loomed into view just inside the girl's circle of light.
It was Denrick, smiling at her.
CHAPTER 15
Vambran moved down the smoky, torchlit hallway, sword in hand. The stink of sweat and fear clung to everything so many levels below the surface. The lieutenant knew he was near the dungeons of the Palace of the Seven, but his magic seemed to be leading him in a different direction. He had not encountered any guards, no one to stand in his way, though that was not a surprise. The city is in chaos, he thought. Why stay here and protect empty corridors?
The mercenary was close to the source of the malignancy, and he knew it. Malevolence radiated through the place, oozed from the walls, hung on him like a funereal shroud. It was a sense of evil so pervasive that he no longer needed divine guidance to track it. Whatever was causing the plague was in the bowels of the keep, and he was closing in on it.
He had to fight the urge to leap ahead, to charge forward and find that source. Whatever was down there
